


making muffins

by deniigiq



Series: Dumpster Fires Verse [21]
Category: Deadpool - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Essentially wade's A-Team and Team Red start to collide and Wade oh-shits it out of there, Gen, Lost Pets, Pets, Team Bonding, Team Dynamics, Team Red, as in Wade's cat, emotional distress, oh and the boxes make a second appearance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-08-05 08:50:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16364744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deniigiq/pseuds/deniigiq
Summary: Wade had spoken to twelve vets and half the fucking block like a psychopath—a real, actual psychopath shaking people down for change, except instead of shaking people he was more like pleading. And instead of change, he was after his fucking cat.(Wade's cat disappears and he comes home to find that Team Red and his A-Team are on a collision course.)





	making muffins

**Author's Note:**

> Bella is Wade's cat from 'when you need the devil' and 'six for the price of none' in this verse. you can totally read this one without having read those, though.

Wade had a problem.

Said problem was less of a thing and more of a lack of one.

It was, in actuality, a robbery if he was being honest. Not an armed one, no. Not after Wade was done with them.

The cat was missing. His apartment was in complete upheaval and there was blood all over his fucking door and coffee table and the police were milling around like fucking termites and for once, _for once_ he had just been a bystander.

He didn’t understand why the fuck God hated him enough to send Bonnie and fucking Clyde through _his_ living room window trying to kill each other, and at this point in his life he knew better than to ask. And, if he was being truthful with himself, which he always was, he didn’t care.

The problem was that the door had been opened in the uproar. The problem was that the cat was missing.

How the fuck do you find a cat?

 

 

Belladonna did not have a microchip because the boxes were convinced that chipping her would make her a target. Well, Box B was convinced chipping her would make her a target. Box B was to be trusted and acknowledged sparingly, however, for multiple reasons. Mostly, though, because Box B’s ideas frequently derived from unsubstantiated assumptions. Case in point: the argument that Bella could be a target, in the sense of the word dancing around Wade’s skull currently, relied on the assumption that Wade cared about her. Which he _thought_ he hadn’t. He’d been pretty damn sure he hadn’t. Damn thing was just a thorn in his side. Just another thing in his life that he’d found and held onto for Vanessa. Purely for Vanessa. Even though she was never coming back. The impulse to bring her things, to find things that would have made her laugh and shriek and kiss him until he couldn’t breathe, to find places for those things in their home—their shared home, was a strong one.

He knew, he _knew_ he shouldn’t. That doing so was just another bizarre Miss Havisham-esque manifestation of his fucking grief, denial, bargaining, what the fuck ever.

But hell. He basically _was_ Miss Havisham at this point. Waiting at an altar for some bitch who was never coming back. Dom was constantly jabbing his side about it.

“You need to get laid, friend.”

“You ought to go find some company, big guy.”

“Hey, I know a guy who’s a holy terror. His name’s—”

“If you say Nathan Summers one more time, I will kill you unrepentantly.”

“—Alex.”

He got it, okay?

Spidey was starting to pick up on it too, the little shit.

“Wade, you seem lonely.”

“Wade, do you have friends?”

“Wade, why do you have so much stuff in your apartment when you’re never home?”

“Wade, do you like yoga?”

Fucking. UGH.

He hated when people cared.

But anyways, given the current fucking situation around the goddamn cat, i.e. elevated blood pressure and heart rate, Box B was apparently onto something with that whole target business.

And while Box B was crowing in triumph over this revelation, Box A was busy being livid because it had been shrieking at Wade for _weeks_ to get the damn cat chipped anyways. Chipped. Next round of shots. Spayed. Chipped. Next round of shots. Spayed. Over and over, it had been wailing. Making Wade feel like shit every time the little monster kneaded her fucking razor blades into his thighs on the couch.

Dom called this “making muffins,” which made no goddamn sense and was not helped by Nathan correcting it to “making pancakes” because you don’t fucking knead either of those things. Jesus fuck, all that murderous intent and capability and zero fucking knowledge of basic bread making processes. Christ, Wade had to do everything around here.

Okay, no. He was freaking out. Fixating on the muffins. He didn’t have time to fixate on the muffins, he had a cat to find.

Guys, _focus_ , he scolded the boxes. How the fuck do you find a cat?

Box B threw up a Hansel and Gretel situation involving Bella’s cat treats and a box held up with a stick. Box A shrieked COLLECT INTEL. Box B then remembered that Wade still had fingerprint powder from the whole rats-except-cats situation and suggested that he Sherlock-Holmes that bitch. Box A helpfully shrieked COLLECT INTEL.

Wade did what he usually did and went with the louder of the two.

 

 

Peter stopped by Wade’s place on the way home from internship to say hey and drop off some of the information he’d dug up for that weekend’s job.

There were weird orange, rusty stains on the door from where someone had hastily scrubbed away blood. That wasn’t unusual. This was Wade they were talking about. What was unusual were the scraps of yellow police tape still sticking to the sides of the doorframe.

Wade had zero faith in cops. He would be damned before he let any of them near his home.

The door was slightly ajar.

Peter’s heartrate rocketed up. The Spidey Sense zipped up his spine and he shivered as tension crawled into his shoulders.

Wade didn’t leave shit unlocked. He could be hurt. He could have died again and just barely made it home. Someone could have tracked him. Hurt him. In his own home.

Peter set his jaw and blinked his wide eyes back to their usual state. He rolled his shoulders and, gently, carefully pressed the very tips of his fingers against the door with just enough pressure to coax it back a few more inches.

The apartment was empty. He watched it for movement for a few seconds. Let the Spidey Sense roil around and get a good feel for anything in there. It squirmed for a few and then made the hair on the back of Peter’s neck stand up. He shivered again and set his brow.

He stepped into the apartment and closed the door.

 

 

Wade had spoken to twelve vets and half the fucking block like a psychopath—a real, actual psychopath shaking people down for change, except instead of shaking people he was more like pleading. And instead of change, he was after his fucking cat.

He was assured by eight of the vets and a third of the block that Bella would come home on her own. He just had to give her time. Cats were smarter than they seemed and she was just a baby. She didn’t have ideas in her head yet about being able to survive on her own in the wild or whatever it was that inspired cats to abandon everything they knew.

Box B declared they were all talking out of their asses. Box A was still really into the whole COLLECT INTEL thing.

He was interrogating Box A about the steps after COLLECT INTEL when Wade tripped over his own fucking cat in the middle of the goddamn street.

 

 

Bella didn’t recognize him outside the apartment and didn’t appreciate nearly getting squashed by a giant, bumbley human. She hissed at him when he hit the ground, just barely keeping himself from crashing down on top of her with his palms, and sprang away, finding shelter just out of Wade’s grasp under a nearby car. Wade scrambled up and dashed after her before he even realized he was doing it.

He spent five minutes making kissy noises and saying dumbass shit like ‘no, no, no, honey. It’s okay, baby. It’s just me. You know me,’ until she nervously crept towards him to smell the hand he’d stretched out to her under the car. He grabbed her by the scruff of the neck before she could react and she went limp. He fished her out carefully, to avoid bumping her head against any metal or tires and sat up on his heels by the car, one cat heavier.

He found himself saying more dumb shit like ‘that’s a good girl, you’re such a good girl,’ while he tucked her up against his shoulder like a fucking child. She clung to him with her tiny razors in his jacket and burrowed her little nose and whiskers into his neck.

He thought he was going to fucking pass out from sheer relief, once he was done having a fucking heart attack.

This.

 _Monster_.

Had missed him as much as he missed her.

And had been trying to find her way home in her own terrified way.

He was getting emotional.

His neighbors were fucking cooing at him from across the street but he didn’t care.

He cradled her like he’d cradle a fucking child and could do nothing but swear until he’d gotten his sea legs again.

 

 

Cat acquired, Wade turned around and marched right back over to the veterinarian clinic he’d just emerged from. Bella was getting microchipped _that fucking day_ , despite Box B’s unholy, two-toned screaming.

The vet very kindly cleaned the motor oil off the top of Bella’s head after subjecting her to medical torture.

“You’re a very proactive cat dad,” the gal noted to Wade as she filled out paperwork.  

Wade hated her for those words alone. But he also had his hands and neck full of terrified hell beast and required her services for the sake of his motherfucking sanity. He decided to let her live.

“Alright, from now on, if she gets picked up by someone and brought to a shelter or clinic, they’ll scan her for the chip and we’ll get her right back to you,” the horrible vet informed him, as if he was a fucking idiot.

He knew how chips worked, lady. He had a couple of his own in a bag at home for those especially pesky flight-risks.

He thanked her anyways and took his trembling black blob to the pet store for a harness. He stood for a long time deciding between a tasteful black one or a high-vis eye-searing yellow one. He bought a black one out respect for his profession. He had Bella’s name and his number printed onto a little metal tag which he affixed to the harness and stalked, homeward bound, with the now well-documented beast stuffed in his jacket.

 

 

He got home and unlocked the door but didn’t get two feet in before Dom was assaulting his face with her hands up in front of her, telling him not to freak out while Nathan sighed and pressed his hand to his forehead on the couch behind her.

He couldn’t process what she was saying, but he _could_ process the fact that the Vans hanging limply over the arm of the couch next to Nathan were _awfully_ familiar.

He dropped the cat and stared at the ceiling for guidance, but the boxes had fallen silent. Motherfucking good-for-nothings.

 

 

Peter was knocked clean out, the poor kid. He hadn’t stood a chance, not between Dom and Nathan.

“There is a _reason_ ,” he ground out, pressing fingers into his eyes, “That I keep you motherfuckers separate.”

Nathan, the dad that he was, was visibly upset about the whole thing. He said nothing, brow furrowed, lips tight. He’d laid Peter’s head gently on his thigh while he slept. He watched the kid like a hawk, even though that was entirely unnecessary. Wade had perfectly good couch cushions all around, and while he and Red weren’t 100% sure how much damage the kid could take, they’d concluded for sure that it was a fucking lot. A rogue concussion wouldn’t leave any lasting damage, he probably wouldn’t even notice it after one or two decent nights of sleep.

Still though. What the fuck was Wade gonna tell the kid when he woke up?

Spidey was too damn smart for his own good and would know in a heartbeat that Wade was lying if he said he’d done it himself. Wade didn’t exactly go around beating on the kid for the hell of it, not even when the paranoia got real bad. And Wade didn’t know if the kid had gotten a good look at Dom before she’d done his head in.

That could pose some problems. Wade was very much not a petit black woman, not in any fucking way.

“Girl,” he groaned.

“I said I’m sorry,” Dom pleaded.

He sighed.

He couldn’t be too mad. It was kind of amazing that Dom was ready to throw down for him and his shit, even in his absence.

Peter made a soft noise and all three of them jumped. He snuffled and rolled his head against Nathan’s jeans like he was starting to wake up. Nathan flailed for a second uncharacteristically, before the dad-instincts kicked in and he steadied himself enough to carefully pet Pete’s hair with his flesh hand until the kid settled a bit, but that wasn’t going to last long enough for them to get their fucking story straight.

Wade ducked out to go locate and seize his well-documented cat. He fished said cat out from under his bed and went back to the living room to place her on Peter’s chest. The kid fucking adored Bella and Bella adored him. And true to form, Peter subconsciously reached up to touch and pet the cat and she settled down, tucked her little pawsies under her chest, and got to work rumbling.

Peter sighed in his sleep and his hands slowly stopped their stroking.

Crisis averted.

For now.

Wade glared at the other two and silently demanded suggestions for how to fucking proceed.

 

 

“ _He’s_ Spidey?” Dom whispered scandalized as Wade and Nathan attempted to trade spots without jostling kid or cat. “He’s like, twelve.”

“He’s just about sixteen,” Wade corrected, also in a whisper.

“You can’t fucking recruit a sixteen-year-old, Wade,” Dom maintained. Wade thought he heard some anger in her voice.

“I didn’t fucking recruit him,” he snapped, “We teamed up and I found out he was fucking twelve after.”

Dom made a furious gesture to Spidey as if to say, ‘what about this doesn’t scream twelve?’ And Wade got that, he really did. Hindsight was a bitch.

“Look,” he whispered, “I didn’t mean to get close to the little shit, alright? It just fucking happened and now he’s all up in my shit just like you two are.”

“What, you’re _friends_?” Dom hissed. Wade had never seen her so serious. “That’s not okay.”

“I know, Dom.”

“Wade you know this, you know better than anyone else what happens when kids suddenly start making friends with adults. You _know_ —”

“Girl, fucking Stark is trying to make him a goddamn Avenger. He spends all his time with that fuckhead and then the rest of it falling between the cracks, alright? Me and the other guy, we didn’t know he was a kid when we signed up to whatever the fuck it is we’re doing. Just thought he was an amateur trying to get his head beat in and was like, unusually useful air support. But then we found out and didn’t know where to go from there. Turned out Stark and all them just gave him a suit and threw him out and let him do his thing without even teaching him how to fight. What the fuck were we supposed to do, girl? If he’d have kept running around blind like he was, he was gonna get killed.”

Dom glared at him anyways.

“You should have left him,” she said.

“I ain’t gonna leave a fucking kid to die,” Wade hissed back.

“You’re going fucking soft, Wade.”

“You’d do the same, don’t even play.”

“Wade?”

Oh fuck, Jesus. Fuck. Goddamnit.

They should have been planning, not fucking chatting.

“Hey bud, you’re alright, go back to sleep,” he soothed.

“Wade, someone’s in your house,” Peter slurred. Wade petted his head and jerked his own hard to get the other two to go fucking hide. They beat it, more or less quietly. Wade knocked his phone off the side of the couch to cover their shuffling and leaned over to pick it up.

“No one’s in, Spidey. Looks like you fell and hit your head pretty hard. The fuck were you doing, huh?”

Peter squirmed and dislodged the cat trying to sit up.

“There was someone here,” he maintained, “I thought—I could have sworn--” He looked around at the empty living room. Then spun around the other way, confused. He stopped and turned back to Wade who did his fucking best to keep his heart steady and expression neutral. “I thought I saw a lady here.”

Wade snickered. Peter mugged at him and punched him in the shoulder.

“For _real_ , asshole.”

“Wow, language, munchkin. You’re spending too much time with Red again.”

“No, I’m not.” Peter rubbed at the side of his head and winced. Then turned back to Wade frowning. “Where were you?”

“The hairy terror escaped,” he said. “But have no fear, she has been drawn and quartered for her sins.”

Wrong thing to say. Definitely the wrong thing to say.

Spidey was horrified, borderline teary. Wade doubled back.

“Joking,” he qualified, “100% joking. Cat is fine. Cat is now chipped. Cat has a very fancy, very expensive collar.”  

The kid was relieved. He rubbed at his head again.

“I don’t feel so good,” he mumbled.

Do not puke. Wade had finally gotten the bloodstains out of the couch and if Spidey puked, Wade would puke, and he could not clean vomit out of his couch without vomiting again himself. Repeatedly.

“Yeah, concussions’ll do that to you. Looks like you might have taken the edge of the table there. Here, your aunt works at Metro Gen, yeah? Let’s give her a call and she can come pick you up.”

Spidey agreed since this concussion was non-vigilantism induced and therefore not something that was likely to get him yelled at. He napped while Wade called the resident witch and then waited. The other two came out when it was clear that Pete was down for the count for the time being and judged Wade _hard_ for his friendly-guy act.

“I am a friendly guy,” he argued.

“Who jokes about drawing and quartering a cat?” Nathan demanded.

“What else was I supposed to say?”

“He’s a kid.”

“He’s not twelve.”

Dom had slipped past both of them and had set herself to examining Peter. Wade noticed too late. She’d already started making plans.

“Dom, no,” he told her.

“We could use some air support,” she pointed out.

“You said it yourself, he’s too young. And he doesn’t kill. It’s kind of his thing.”

“Nah, you’re confusing him with the other guy. Daredevil.”

Wade stared at the ceiling again, pleading, but all he got from the boxes was radio silence.

“I’m not, though,” he said.

“Sure, big guy. Anyways—”

“Daredevil is the other one on our team.”

Silence.

“Wade Wilson, you mean you’ve had the Devil in your back pocket this whole time?” Dom asked, delighted.

“He is aggressive and noncompliant in every way imaginable.”

Nathan snorted, very validly and eloquently making the point that everyone on their fucking team was aggressive and noncompliant in every way possible. Dom grinned.

“He sounds kinda cute.”

Absolutely not. Over his dead body.  

“C’mon, Wade. He doesn’t have to kill anyone, we can do that for him,” she said smoothly.

He tried to imagine Red in the same room as the other two and decided that, for the sake of his goddamned blood pressure, he’d never do it again.

They were interrupted by a knock at the door, and he hauled the other two into the hall closet and slammed it closed.

 

 

Peter went home drowsy with his aunt after making Wade promise that he would not exact any form of harm on the cat. Wade then sent the other two packing with the threat never to speak to, stalk, intimidate, maim, barter with, or contact either Red or Spidey for any purpose whatsoever, no matter how badly they needed air support for the next mission.

He was furiously writing out a new list of boundaries and schedules and techniques to maximize the distance between his fucking webs, so as to prevent any and all possible similar situations in the future, when Bella padded her way across his lap and settled in to start kneading at his legs. He watched her for a moment. She purred.

“I would kill for you,” he realized and informed her.

She purred.

 

**Author's Note:**

> hello friends, here with a bit of news. 
> 
> I am considering recording some podfics for this verse. I can't do all of them, but I'm happy to do some. So if y'all are interested in that and can stand a slight Oakie accent, please let me know which ones you'd like done (which haven't already been done by the amazing MidnightMew) either on here or at my tumblr (deniigi.tumblr.com).
> 
> Thanks!


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